(Afflerbach, Pearson, & Paris, 2008; Carpenter & Paris, 2005; Paris, 2005, 2008; Paris, Carpenter, Paris, & Hamilton, 2005; Paris & Luo, 2010) offer a helpful distinction when thinking about these elements: they differentiate between constrained and unconstrained reading skills. Constrained skills, such as fluency and word recognition, are those that develop in a fairly linear way and that students can learn to master in a relatively short period of time. We indicate this in figure 1.1 by the closed columns representing word recognition and fluency (on the left side of the figure). Unconstrained skills, such as comprehension and vocabulary, develop organically and continually over long periods of time; they have the potential for unlimited growth. These appear in the open columns representing vocabulary and comprehension (on the right of the figure). We also consider foundational skills (at the bottom of the figure), such as concepts of print and tier one vocabulary, to be constrained skills. Readers will note that listening comprehension is an exception; it is represented with a closed column. Research by Nell K. Duke and Joanne Carlisle (2011), which we address in a later section, indicates that listening comprehension improves and is useful up to a point, but then becomes less important than reading comprehension as texts become more complex. Therefore, we represent it with a closed column.
Foundational Skills: Concepts of Print and Tier One Vocabulary
Concepts of print are basic ideas about how print (generally) and books (in particular) work (Clay, 2000, 2013). Table 1.5 (page 18) lists selected concepts of print.
Table 1.5: Selected Concepts of Print
| Concept of Print | Description |
| Book Handling | All books have covers and pages that people read in a specific order. |
| Vertical Reading Direction | Reading in English goes from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. |
| Horizontal Reading Direction | Reading in English goes from left to right, line by line. |
| Page Order | People read book pages in a specific order. |
| Print Function | The function of print is to carry meaning. |
| Print-to-Speech Correspondence | One printed word corresponds to one spoken word. |
| Role of Punctuation in Print | People use punctuation to signal types of sentences and the ends of sentences. |
| Letter-Word Discrimination in Print | Words and letters are different; people use letters to make words. |
Source: Adapted from Zucker, Ward, & Justice, 2009.
Regarding vocabulary, Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan (2002) categorize vocabulary terms into three tiers. Tier one terms are those that most native speakers already know because they frequently hear them in oral conversations (for example, clock, happy, and baby). Most native English speakers will acquire tier one terms from oral conversation and will not need instruction in them. However, English learners or students from home environments that lack rich oral language experiences will likely need direct instruction in these words. Robert J. Marzano (2010b) compiled a list of 2,845 of these terms, organized into 420 semantically related clusters; visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a list of these terms and their clusters.
Constrained Skills: Fluency and Word Recognition
Fluency is the ability to read accurately and with appropriate expression at an appropriate pace. Most definitions of reading fluency include three components: (1) prosody, (2) accuracy, and (3) automaticity (Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, Meisinger, Levy, & Rasinski, 2010). Prosody is the extent to which oral reading sounds like oral speech; it involves the stress placed on syllables, vocal intonation, and pace of reading. Accuracy is reading words correctly, and automaticity is reading words quickly and without conscious attention to the process (Cunningham, Nathan, & Raher, 2011; Rasinski, Reutzel, Chard, & Linan-Thompson, 2011). Accuracy and automaticity are the twin goals of word recognition development. Figure 1.2 illustrates the relationship between word recognition and the three components of fluency.
Figure 1.2: Relationship between word recognition and the components of fluency.
As shown in figure 1.2, two components of fluency—accuracy and automaticity—are required for students to effectively read the words on a page. Adding prosody allows students to read the words with expression, proper phrasing, and appropriate intonation. Accordingly, we discuss word recognition (accuracy + automaticity) first and finish with a discussion of prosody.
Automatic word recognition (which implies accurate word recognition) is necessary for skilled reading because the brain cannot pay attention to two tasks at once. It must either switch back and forth between tasks, or one of the tasks must become automatic. Reading researchers have been aware of this phenomenon since the late 19th century (for example, see Cattell, 1886; Huey, 1908). In 1974, David LaBerge and S. Jay Samuels articulated their theory of automatic information processing in reading. They posit that, in mature readers, surface-level reading processes (such as identifying letters, decoding them, and connecting words to meanings) operate with little to no conscious effort, allowing these readers to focus cognitive resources on making meaning from text (comprehension). Charles A. Perfetti and Thomas Hogaboam (1975) and Michael I. Posner and C. R. R. Snyder (1975) go a step further, claiming that word recognition has to become automatic because comprehension can’t; understanding a text always requires conscious cognitive control. Later researchers agreed with and extended these theories (see Logan, 1997; Stanovich, 1990), but the fundamental idea remained: “Rapid word recognition frees up mental resources for thinking about the writer’s intent and the meaning of the text rather than what word the print represents” (Roberts, Christo, & Shefelbine, 2011, p. 229). Research also indicates that many struggling readers’ difficulties stem from a lack of automaticity with word recognition (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007; Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon, 2004); these students can’t focus on understanding a text because they have dedicated their cognitive resources to figuring out what the words say.
For skilled readers, some researchers call automatic word recognition “the obligatory nature of word recognition” (Roberts et al., 2011, p. 230). In other words, a skilled reader can’t resist reading a word; to see a word is to know what it says. Reading “happens automatically without the influence of intention or choice” (Ehri, 2005, p. 135). To illustrate this idea, consider figure 1.3. Try to name the animal in the picture while ignoring the printed word.
Figure 1.3: Picture-word interference task.
For skilled readers, the task in figure 1.3 is difficult because they recognize the printed word automatically; the word creates a cognitive cue that the reader must resist in order to accurately name the animal in
